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Study: Voluntary Donations To Schools Are Widening Funding Gap

October 24, 2014 | 1:29 PM

An IU study shows wealthy school districts are raising more money through non-profit organizations like PTA groups, which widens the gap between rich and poor schools.

A report released this week from education researchers at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs shows voluntary donations to school districts is widening the funding gap between rich and poor districts.

The study, written by SPEA associate professors Ashlyn Aiko Nelson and Beth Gazley, looked only at non-profit groups like Parent Teachers Associations, Booster Clubs and local foundations. They excluded large foundations that donate to schools around the country, because they wanted to track local money donated to local schools.

Nelson says they wanted to look at these types of donations because of the widening gap between wealthy and low-income districts. Currently in Indiana, money raised from income and sales taxes are pooled by the state and allocated to districts on a per-pupil basis using a school funding formula. The state does this as a way to keep funding for all schools equal, but donations through non-profit organizations provides a different way to create inequality.

“What that leads to is a system where in high-income districts a lot of families are saying ‘well we’d be willing to have more spending being done but we can’t control that locally because it’s based on a state formula’,” Nelson said. “So what are the alternative revenue raising mechanisms we have available to us to increase the level of spending to the desired level? One of the mechanisms is to pass a general fund or construction referendum. Another mechanism is to create one of these school supporting non-profit organizations that can be used to funnel money into the schools.”

Nelson says this trend will only widen the gap between rich and poor districts. Nelson says in some places, like California, there is a push to pool donated money in a similar way to the public money. But, she says eliminating the option for non-profit donations probably won’t solve the problem.

“If you tell parents that their voluntary contributions aren’t going to stay in their local schools, it creates a huge disincentive to engage in voluntary contributions,” Nelson said. “Of course with wealthy parents they have an exit option, which is to send their kids to a private school.”

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Comments

Guest

This is a very misleading
article and the study behind it sounds like they assume that all schools are
funded equally, which far from true! Widening the funding gap? Donations are actually narrowing
the funding gap. The school district of
East Chicago gets $7,561.90 per
pupil – the highest in the state. The lowest funded is Carmel Clay Schools – $4,620.16. A
disparity of almost $3,000
per pupil. The article makes no mention of this disparity and makes it
sound like all schools are funded exactly the same. Here’s a link to the
per pupil funding for every district in Indiana:http://in53.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/2013-tuisupadm.pdf

Karynb9

Okay. Go hang out in Carmel schools for a couple of days and then in East Chicago for a couple of days and tell me if it looks like the East Chicago students are at an advantage. “Fair” and “Equal” are not the same things.

Michelle

I’m not saying that they don’t need more money. I’m saying the article is misleading. It sounds like “poorer” schools get less money, which is very far from true. I’m not saying E. Chicago and Carmel should get the same amount of money per pupil, so I am not sure what your point is. But, after spending some time in E. Chicago training teachers and support staff, I saw that they have a lot more money to spend. No PTO/PTA will be able to come up with $3000 per student to narrow that gap. In terms of Indiana funding, E. Chicago is a rich school and Carmel is a poor one. Misleading article and not based in fact.